Office Create considering legal action over unauthorised release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar

Update: Planet Entertainment has fired back at Office Create with a statement.

Original Story: The bizarre scenario regarding the release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar isn’t over yet. Today, Office Create, the creators of Cooking Mama, who licenced Cookstar to be created by Planet Entertainment have throw water on an oil fire with an official statement regarding the game’s release.

We would like to thank our fans and customers for their support over the years for the Cooking Mama franchise. As many of you know, Planet Entertainment LLC (Headquarters: Connecticut, USA; “Planet”) recently released “Cooking Mama: Cookstar” for sale in the U.S., Europe and Australia. This was an unauthorized release in breach of Planet’s contract with Office Create.

According to the statement made by Office Create, they say that they “rejected a wide range of deficiencies affecting the overall feel, quality and content of the game” and that “despite being contractually obligated to correct the identified deficiencies and resubmit the corrected game for Office Create’s approval” they went ahead and released the game without the approval of Office Create.

The upcoming PS4 version of the game which was meant to be released at the end of the month may not even exist. If it does exist, it’s not supposed to.

We have also learned that Planet and/or its European distributor has been promoting an upcoming European release of a PS4™ version of Cooking Mama: Cookstar. Office Create has not licensed Planet (or any other entity) to create any Cooking Mama games for PS4™. Office Create itself has not been involved in the development of any PS4™ Cooking Mama game.

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Office Create notified Planet on March 30th, 2020 that it had terminated its licence with them due to these intentional breaches. Despite this termination, Planet continues to sell the game on its website (and in stores if you can still find it).

Office Create is evaluating all legal action against Planet to protect our customers, intellectual property rights and the Cooking Mama series. In the meantime, we thank our customers and loyal Cooking Mama fans for their continued support and sincerely regret any confusion and disappointment that has been caused by Planet’s conduct.

Yikes.

The statement in full can be read here on the Office Create website.